Growth of the Trinity Concept

104:3.1While man­kind has some­times grasped at an un­der­stand­ing of the Trin­ity of the three per­sons of De­ity, con­sis­tency de­mands that the hu­man in­tel­lect per­ceive that there are cer­tain re­la­tion­ships be­tween all seven Ab­so­lutes. But all that which is true of the Par­a­dise Trin­ity is not nec­es­sar­ily true of a tri­unity, for a tri­unity is some­thing other than a trin­ity. In cer­tain func­tional as­pects a tri­unity may be anal­o­gous to a trin­ity, but it is never ho­mol­o­gous in na­ture with a trin­ity.

104:3.2Mor­tal man is pass­ing through a great age of ex­pand­ing hori­zons and en­larg­ing con­cepts on Uran­tia, and his cos­mic phi­los­o­phy must ac­cel­er­ate in evo­lu­tion to keep pace with the ex­pan­sion of the in­tel­lec­tual arena of hu­man thought. As the cos­mic con­scious­ness of mor­tal man ex­pands, he per­ceives the in­ter­re­lat­ed­ness of all that he finds in his ma­te­rial sci­ence, in­tel­lec­tual phi­los­o­phy, and spir­i­tual in­sight. Still, with all this be­lief in the unity of the cos­mos, man per­ceives the di­ver­sity of all ex­is­tence. In spite of all con­cepts con­cern­ing the im­mutabil­ity of De­ity, man per­ceives that he lives in a uni­verse of con­stant change and ex­pe­ri­en­tial growth. Re­gard­less of the re­al­iza­tion of the sur­vival of spir­i­tual val­ues, man has ever to reckon with the math­e­mat­ics and pre­math­e­mat­ics of force, en­ergy, and power.

104:3.3In some man­ner the eter­nal re­plete­ness of in­fin­ity must be rec­on­ciled with the time-growth of the evolv­ing uni­verses and with the in­com­plete­ness of the ex­pe­ri­en­tial in­hab­i­tants thereof. In some way the con­cep­tion of to­tal in­fini­tude must be so seg­mented and qual­i­fied that the mor­tal in­tel­lect and the mor­ontia soul can grasp this con­cept of fi­nal value and spir­i­tu­al­iz­ing sig­nif­i­cance.

104:3.4While rea­son de­mands a mono­the­is­tic unity of cos­mic re­al­ity, fi­nite ex­pe­ri­ence re­quires the pos­tu­late of plu­ral Ab­so­lutes and of their co-or­di­na­tion in cos­mic re­la­tion­ships. With­out co-or­di­nate ex­is­tences there is no pos­si­bil­ity for the ap­pear­ance of di­ver­sity of ab­so­lute re­la­tion­ships, no chance for the op­er­a­tion of dif­fer­en­tials, vari­ables, mod­i­fiers, at­ten­u­a­tors, qual­i­fiers, or di­min­ish­ers.

104:3.5In these pa­pers to­tal re­al­ity (in­fin­ity) has been pre­sented as it ex­ists in the seven Ab­so­lutes:

104:3.61. The Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther.

104:3.72. The Eter­nal Son.

104:3.83. The In­fi­nite Spirit.

104:3.94. The Isle of Par­a­dise.

104:3.105. The De­ity Ab­so­lute.

104:3.116. The Uni­ver­sal Ab­so­lute.

104:3.127. The Un­qual­i­fied Ab­so­lute.

104:3.13The First Source and Cen­ter, who is Fa­ther to the Eter­nal Son, is also Pat­tern to the Par­a­dise Isle. He is per­son­al­ity un­qual­i­fied in the Son but per­son­al­ity po­ten­tial­ized in the De­ity Ab­so­lute. The Fa­ther is en­ergy re­vealed in Par­a­dise-Ha­vona and at the same time en­ergy con­cealed in the Un­qual­i­fied Ab­so­lute. The In­fi­nite is ever dis­closed in the cease­less acts of the Con­joint Ac­tor while he is eter­nally func­tion­ing in the com­pen­sat­ing but en­shrouded ac­tiv­i­ties of the Uni­ver­sal Ab­so­lute. Thus is the Fa­ther re­lated to the six co-or­di­nate Ab­so­lutes, and thus do all seven en­com­pass the cir­cle of in­fin­ity through­out the end­less cy­cles of eter­nity.

104:3.14It would seem that tri­unity of ab­so­lute re­la­tion­ships is in­ev­i­ta­ble. Per­son­al­ity seeks other per­son­al­ity as­so­ci­a­tion on ab­so­lute as well as on all other lev­els. And the as­so­ci­a­tion of the three Par­a­dise per­son­al­i­ties eter­nal­izes the first tri­unity, the per­son­al­ity union of the Fa­ther, the Son, and the Spirit. For when these three per­sons, as per­sons, con­join for united func­tion, they thereby con­sti­tute a tri­unity of func­tional unity, not a trin­ity—an or­ganic en­tity—but nonethe­less a tri­unity, a three­fold func­tional ag­gre­gate una­nim­ity.

104:3.15The Par­a­dise Trin­ity is not a tri­unity; it is not a func­tional una­nim­ity; rather is it un­di­vided and in­di­vis­i­ble De­ity. The Fa­ther, Son, and Spirit (as per­sons) can sus­tain a re­la­tion­ship to the Par­a­dise Trin­ity, for the Trin­ity is their un­di­vided De­ity. The Fa­ther, Son, and Spirit sus­tain no such per­sonal re­la­tion­ship to the first tri­unity, for that is their func­tional union as three per­sons. Only as the Trin­ity—as un­di­vided De­ity—do they col­lec­tively sus­tain an ex­ter­nal re­la­tion­ship to the tri­unity of their per­sonal ag­gre­ga­tion.

104:3.16Thus does the Par­a­dise Trin­ity stand unique among ab­so­lute re­la­tion­ships; there are sev­eral ex­is­ten­tial tri­uni­ties but only one ex­is­ten­tial Trin­ity. A tri­unity is not an en­tity. It is func­tional rather than or­ganic. Its mem­bers are part­ners rather than cor­po­ra­tive. The com­po­nents of the tri­uni­ties may be en­ti­ties, but a tri­unity it­self is an as­so­ci­a­tion.

104:3.17There is, how­ever, one point of com­par­i­son be­tween trin­ity and tri­unity: Both even­tu­ate in func­tions that are some­thing other than the dis­cern­i­ble sum of the at­tri­butes of the com­po­nent mem­bers. But while they are thus com­pa­ra­ble from a func­tional stand­point, they oth­er­wise ex­hibit no cat­e­gor­i­cal re­la­tion­ship. They are roughly re­lated as the re­la­tion of func­tion to struc­ture. But the func­tion of the tri­unity as­so­ci­a­tion is not the func­tion of the trin­ity struc­ture or en­tity.

104:3.18The tri­uni­ties are nonethe­less real; they are very real. In them is to­tal re­al­ity func­tion­al­ized, and through them does the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther ex­er­cise im­me­di­ate and per­sonal con­trol over the mas­ter func­tions of in­fin­ity.